Telephony

In telecommunication, telephony ( /təˈlɛfəni/ tə-lef-ə-nee) encompasses the general use of equipment to provide voice communication over distances, specifically by connecting telephones to each other. The telephone, often colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sound, most commonly the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other.

Colour photograph of a late nineteenth-century telephone.
Telephony